Most blues singers came from the rural south and in to the big cities during the great migration, away from plantation life towards what they believed would be freedom. Ma Rainey and Bessie Smith, among other female blues singers of the 1920’s and 30’s, helped shape a working class consciousness and challenged “sexual purity and ‘true womanhood.” Blues music was different from others due to it’s provocative and open sexual, including homosexual, imagery in the lyrics.

Smith in particular was known as a “tough talking, whisky drinking broad” that sang of experiences with poverty, heartache and loss. Both Smith and Rainey used their lyrics and melodies of the blues to challenge domesticity and to speak out against sexual norms most women were still attached to.